Marquette Admissions: Justice Bradley Asks New Lawyers What It Means to Uphold the Rule of Law

More than 175 Marquette Law School graduates were admitted to the profession yesterday. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley challenges new lawyers to stand tall and be people of courage.

Colleen Crowley, Milwaukee, (left), will practice alternative dispute resolution, and Alyssa Dianne Curtis heads home to Pennsylvania where she will clerk for a federal judge in Philadelphia.

Alaina K. Fahley, Menasha, Marquette Public Interest Law Student of the Year, with her family at the State Bar-sponsored reception.

Pamela Stokke-Ceci, Wauwatosa, smiles at her father-in-law, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis J. Ceci, Elm Grove, as he moves her admittance to the State Bar.

New lawyer Russell Steinbrenner and his wife Mary Kathryn, who proudly moved her husband’s admission to the State Bar. They will practice in Minnesota.

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May 21, 2013 – More than 175 Marquette Law School graduates were admitted to the profession yesterday. All seven Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, Marquette Law School Dean Joseph Kearney, State Bar President Kevin Klein, and Board of Bar Examiners Director Jacquelynn B. Rothstein welcomed the new lawyers.

Following the swearing-in ceremonies, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley addressed the new lawyers and invoked the late Howard Eisenberg, former Marquette University Law School Dean, who asked: “What does it take to be a good lawyer struggling to uphold the rule of law?”

Dean Eisenberg ventured to answer this question in an article in the Wisconsin Lawyer™ magazine. He wrote: “It takes honesty and courage. A lawyer must have the guts to tell people things they don’t want to hear, make decisions that will upset people, take positions that are unpopular, and assert claims and positions before hostile tribunals. A lawyer’s ethical obligations sometimes to say to a client a senior partner or a supervisor – this I will not do.”

Bradley said, “You have taken the oath to uphold the rule of law, what does that mean? I think it means when you are putting together a deal for a client and there’s a wink or a nod, that you will have the courage to be an aggressive advocate, but you will not shade the truth. It means that you have the courage to embrace unpopular causes and to stand up for the victims, and the poor, and the powerless in our community.

“Courage also means that you join in the public debate when the independent judiciary is being threatened,” she said, “Courage means that you make sure that the voices who speak thoughtfully about the role of judges, the role of courts, and the rule of law are not silent. Courage means having your voice heard, standing tall.”

Reflecting on Wisconsin’s history and judges who have stood tall and even lost elections because they had the courage to stand up for what they believed in, she concluded, “I join this morning with Dean Howard Eisenberg, and my challenge to all of you as you embark upon this stage of your life is that you also be people of courage.”